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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Cro Cro to pay Inshan Ishmael $250k

by

387 days ago
20240129
Weston “Cro Cro” Rawlins

Weston “Cro Cro” Rawlins

 

Four-time Ca­lyp­so Monarch, We­st­on "Cro Cro" Rawl­ins, has been or­dered to pay $250,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to busi­ness­man and so­cial ac­tivist, In­shan Ish­mael, for defama­tion. 

The com­pen­sa­tion was or­dered by High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad, a short while ago, as he up­held Ish­mael's case over Rawl­ins' song "An­oth­er Sat is Out­side Again".

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that Rawl­ins' lyrics could not be con­sid­ered fair com­ment, were ma­li­cious and in­tend­ed to dam­age Ish­mael's rep­u­ta­tion. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said:

"This Court will not con­done or ac­cept any po­si­tion which ad­vances a nar­ra­tive that so­cial me­dia com­ments or com­men­tary by ca­lyp­so­ni­ans are sacro­sanct or that ca­lyp­so­ni­ans should be free to say what­ev­er they feel as they ‘speak their minds' even if their con­tent is di­vi­sive, deroga­to­ry, de­ceit­ful, dis­hon­est or defam­a­to­ry."

Rawl­ins al­leged­ly penned the song fol­low­ing so­cial me­dia furore to­wards Ish­mael based on his com­ments on the cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by res­i­dents of Beetham Gar­dens af­ter fel­low res­i­dent Ka­reem Mar­celle was called to the bar in No­vem­ber 2022.

Al­though Rawl­ins did not qual­i­fy for the semi­fi­nals of last year's Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, Ish­mael claimed that a video of his per­for­mance dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary round of the com­pe­ti­tion at the Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege in Val­sayn was wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia.

In his judg­ment, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that Rawl­ins did not de­ny that the song was di­rect­ed at In­shan Ish­mael though, he at­tempt­ed to con­ceal his (Ishamel’s) name. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad did dis­miss Ish­mael's claim in re­la­tion to the Copy­right Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T (COTT), as he not­ed that the body mere­ly col­lects roy­al­ties for its mem­bers, in­clud­ing Rawl­ins. He al­so point­ed out that the song was not reg­is­tered. 

Ish­mael was rep­re­sent­ed by Richard Jag­gasar, Nigel Tran­coso and An­dre Cole, while Gilbert Pe­ter­son SC, Kei­th Scot­land, and Mar­celle rep­re­sent­ed Rawl­ins.


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